Jazzy Wood: The Devils Workshop
I have a mountain of projects I want to do and a 14 day quarantine allowed me a little extra time to work on things. While I still worked from home, I gained a couple hours each day that I didn’t have to commute.
I’ve had a bit of a recent obsession with building and fixing things lately and that blended into a fixation I’ve recently had with an image in my head of an all-natural wood bass with all black hardware that I really just wanted. Slowly I began to sleepshop all the parts I needed to make this happen which started, I think, with a neck on eBay. Sleepshopping memories are vague at best as I end up buying things during bouts of insomnia in a half-conscious state.
I ordered the neck for this because it had the nice blacked out inlays with a natural maple fretboard I wanted for my build. The fact that it was gloss finished was a plus, in theory, as it was one less thing I had to do, and I suck at finishes. The downside to this gloss finished all maple neck was that the all maple fretboard was also gloss finished. As far as I know while there are a few guitar makers that do gloss their fretboards, it not an ideal setup. If you’re bending strings, they have a tendency to stick a little. I hit it with a bit of steel wool and it feels a bit better.
One of the catalysts for this project was that I bought a bunch of really nice, but incorrect Hipshot tuners for my Squire that I never got around to returning. Somehow it made more sense to my fragile mind to just keep them and make something else than to get my cash back. The pre-drilled holes were a bit too big for these so I had to pad the bushings a little with duct tape. In the end, they went in well, though in retrospect I should have used an unfinished neck. Then I wouldn’t have the gloss issues and I could have made a nice logo for the headstock.
The body was a really nice, handmade piece of Ash made to order from a dude in North Carolina. I really couldn’t be happier with the woodgrain and the quality of the build. The neck gap just needed a bit of sanding to fit the random neck that I had which was expected. Everything else fit perfectly into place. I do kinda wish that I looked a little deeper into the bodies that he offered because I did later find that he could have made the same Jazz Bass body but with the knob holes formed directly onto the front with no need for a control panel which would have really highlighted the wood even more. That said, I already had the black panel and I think it looks great even in this pic here of the unfinished body with all the hardware just put in place to see how it looked.
After adjusting the neck slot, it was time to do the finish. For this I used the Solarez “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Lacquer” Grain Sealer Formula. This is a UV cured polymer that sets really fast in direct sunlight. I rigged up a little gallows to dangle this in front of various windows to follow the sun throughout the day. When all is said and done, it looks a whole lot better in the pictures than it does in real life. This is no fault of the product; I just suck at finishes. I may go back at some point, give it a good sanding, buff it smooth, and add another coat or two to really fix it up. For now, it’s fine. The finish did bring the grain out really nicely without any discoloring at all. From what I know, which isn’t much, it should stay that way.
Next, it was time to install the electronics. I’ll be perfectly honest that I’ve been using EMG exclusively for the most part because they’re really easy to install. Their Quick Connect, no solder system takes all of the pain out of the job. Luckily, I also really like the way they sound. I put a set of Geezer Butler EMG pickups in my Squire and these went in just as easily. These are nicely punchy and have a wicked crisp sound. So far this makes two sets of passive EMGs I’ve used, the next build will use some active humbuckers. The only issue I had after everything was said and done was that the diagram to hook up the tone pot to the jack seemed to be wired backwards. It was an easy fix since these don’t need to be soldered.
I used another Hipshot Kickass Bridge on this bass like I did on my Squire rebuild. I really liked the one I used before and this bass body came with pre-drilled holes for the bridge that these Kickasses lined up to perfectly to since they’re designed to replace stock Fender bridges. I also like the ability to adjust string spacing that these have, though I really haven’t tried adjusting them too much from the stock setup. Maybe if I get a 5-string version.
If I remember correctly, I did a bit of a better job pricing this one than the first. You can find them for anywhere between $55 to over $100.
Then it was time to put it all together and attach the neck to the body. I fucked this up the first time. I must have been spoiled by the ease that the Squire went back together because the first time I tried hand screwing in the neck I got a huge gap between the neck and the body. It took me most of a day to find a goddamned c-clamp to hold them both together so I could do it properly. Tragically, I didn’t pad the one end well enough and it dug into the black finish of the back plate a little. It’s irritating me a bit.
Once it was all together, I strung it up, plugged it in, and this is when I found that the wiring was wrong. Luckily, as mentioned before, it was an easy fix to take the control plate off and troubleshoot. I did have issues with the A-string in the set of Rotosounds that I put on this, it just buzzed without making any contact with anything, even after adjusting string height, the width of the space in the nut. Luckily, I had a matching replacement A string from another set of the same gauge and make. Intonation wasn’t horrible out of the gate but I’m sure I’ll fuck with it every once in a while until I mess it up bad enough I’ll have to start from scratch.
